Friday, January 8, 2016

Rainy Days and Thursdays

Since I had the week off (you have to love "Use it or Lose it" leave), I decided to swing by "The Rookie" a local brick-and-mortar card store. Anders Olson, the owner, had to move recently, since the strip mall where he and 15 other business resided, was sold. The site is to be demolished, with a phased retail development taking its place.

In any case, I decided Thursday was a fine opportunity to pop in and see his new digs.

It was fun to see Anders again and his new shop is very nice. It's clean, well-lit, and spacious, with a ton more room for plenty of product.

Another reason I was glad I stopped by, Anders was running his, "When it rains, it pours" special. Every day it rains, all cards in the $1.00 boxes (three for $2) are just 50 cents. Anders actually sweetened the pot, making those same cards a quarter each. Even though there's still snow on the ground, we're in the midst of a good, cold 38-degree rain storm here in the heart of the Midwest.

I took the opportunity to amass a nice pile of hockey cards (see my other blog "The Hockey Card Geek," if you're interested in seeing those cards), but I was able to pick up four new (to me) Tony Gwynn cards, as well as a Justin Upton card.

It's amazing the amount of Tony Gwynn cards that come out year after year since his retirement in 2001. For example, there were a total of 246 Tony Gwynn cards released in 2015 alone. with 376 more produced in 2014.

Two of those most recent Gwynn releases include this 2014 Classics Legendary Lumberjacks (#4) and a 2015 Leaf Heroes of Baseball (#55). Typical of the Panini line of cards, all of Gwynn's Padres logos have been airbrushed out. Speaking of airbrushing, it may have been pretty cool if Gwynn were actually wielding an ax on that Lumberjack card.

And then I found this pair - a 1998 Pinnacle Plus Lasting Memories (#29) and 2013 Topps Triple Threads Amethyst (#34) S/N 148/650. Unfortunately, the scanner doesn't really do justice to the regal purple of this amethyst card.

As for the Upton card, it was his 2015 Donruss the Elite Series (#14) S/N 639/999. Upton arrived in San Diego with minor-leaguer Aaron Northcraft from Atlanta in December 2014. Preller raided the Padres' minor league system, sending Max Fried, Dustin Peterson, Mallex Smith and Jace Peterson to the Braves. Upton, basically a rental player, became a free agent on Nov. 2, 2015. He hit .251, with 26 homers, 81 RBIs and 19 SBs. He also struck out 159 times, while drawing 68 walks. Was he worth a one year contract? The Padres still finished 74-88.

I now own a total of 830 of the 9,770 Tony Gwynn cards that have been released since his initial 1982 Hawaii Islanders TMCA minor league card.